He only gets douchier

You've got to hand it to Tricky Dick...

It's rare that a man as reviled as Richard M. Nixon was in life, can look steadily douchier as time goes by.

The latest little nugget comes in the most recent 150 hour block of Nixon tapes released to the public. It's actually relatively mild stuff in comparison to some of the things Nixon said during his stint in the White House, but hearing this guy expound on any subject is a little like listening to Eric Cartman. He has a true gift at coming up with the jerkwad response.

Nixon on abortion. He's generally against it, but has this to say:

“There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white,” he told an aide, before adding: “Or a rape.”

Nixon on the Jews. They bring on antisemitism themselves. The bit below is him commiserating with Billy Graham about Jewish objections to Campus Crusade for Christ:

“What I really think is deep down in this country, there is a lot of anti-Semitism, and all this is going to do is stir it up,” Nixon said. At another point he said, “It may be they have a death wish. You know that’s been the problem with our Jewish friends for centuries."

Nixon on South Vietnamese president Nguyen Van Thieu's hesitation to sign the Paris Peace accords.

"Cut off his head if necessary."

Worst President Ever?

Andrew Sullivan seems to think so.


I have to admit, the thought has crossed my mind, too.


Last night's farewell address was really quite pathetic; a mixture of fantasy and outright distortion. (Jonathan Chait has a really wonderful take on Bush's comment, "I have followed my conscience and done what I thought was right." The answer to which, naturally, is "Yes, we can all agree that you're not a paid enemy agent.") Slightly less pathetic was the presser he gave a few days ago in which James Fallows thought he was watching a Eugene O'Neill play. I get what Fallows is saying (although I think O'Neill is the wrong playwright). Bush looked as if he knew, deep down, that his presidency was a failure. And it was slightly poignant.


But I think we really are way too close to Bush to properly examine his legacy. It will take a few years. And I have little doubt that history will rank his presidency in the bottom five -- but number one? I'm not sure about that.


Sullivan says that his greatest challenger is James Buchanan. A pretty good choice. But, actually, not the worst in my eyes. Buchanan has the dubious distinction of being president as -- one-by-one -- the southern states seceded from the union... And doing nothing about it!


This was certainly unforgivable. But I've always thought it was sort of ridiculous to lay the fault of the Civil War on his doorstep. You have to wonder what would have happened had Buchanan immediately jumped into some sort of negotiation with the leaders of the Confederacy. Would there have been an end to slavery? Or would war have come later and at an even greater cost? Impossible to know -- but my sense is that the Civil War was inevitable by the early-1850s.


Warren Harding's administration certainly gives W. a run for his money in terms of corruption (see Teapot Dome scandal) and malapropisms ("The only man, woman or child who wrote a simple declarative sentence with seven grammatical errors is dead," e.e. cummings noted upon his death.) But I find it difficult to get as mad at Harding as, say, Richard Nixon.


Richard M. Nixon has enjoyed some measure of public forgiveness recent years -- possibly because some of his policies were a little more liberal than they seemed at the time and some of his diplomatic moves had a measure of success. But I think this view is a mistake.


Not to put too fine a point on it, but Nixon was a criminal. He (and his staff) committed numerous felonies while in office. For anyone who doubts me on this, pick up Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's classic, The Final Days or Rick Perlstein's great book, Nixonland (which I was surprised not to see on too many "Ten Best" lists this year.) There was a great deal of winking at the Justice Department under Bush -- and he was ruthless with his political rivals. But you don't see break-ins to a rival's psychiatrist office as you did with Daniel Ellsberg. You don't see them planting evidence in an assassin's apartment to make Democrats look like the party of the nuts, as they did with Arthur Bremer. The levels of fraud and illegal activity under Nixon are just too mind boggling to recount.


Moreover, while Nixon might have opened up China, he is a miserable failure on Vietnam, Cambodia, South America, Greece and many other arenas. (See Christopher Hitchens' screed against Henry Kissinger -- which is just as much a screed against Nixon.) Some of the bloodiest fighting of the Vietnam war (a war he promised to end) came under Nixon. I do not feel charitably towards him. He's certainly in the bottom three.


The other one whom I really think is in contention is Herbert Hoover -- the only one on the list I feel slightly bad putting on, because Hoover wasn't necessarily a bad guy. (He might have even been considered a great man if he had never been president.) He cared deeply about humanitarian relief work -- and he provided a tremendous amount of relief for a badly battered Belgium during World War I, as well as the rest of Europe afterwards.


However, like Buchanan, Hoover was completely impotent during an unprecedented crisis.


Unlike Buchanan, who only dithered for a few months as states seceded, Hoover dithered for three long, painful years before he got out of dodge. Not just dithered. He likely made the Great Depression even worse with ill-conceived ideas like the Smoot-Hawley Tariff. Letting the military loose on poor veterans (the "Bonus Army") was a national disgrace. And his determination not to deviate from "volunteerism" as a recovery plan for the poor was a disaster. Nearly 25 percent of the country was out of work by 1932.


Many people don't realize just how close the U.S. was nearing all out anarchy in March of 1933 when FDR was sworn in. Banks were closing at a shocking clip. Two million people were homeless. Many, many people believed that the U.S. would be shifting to some sort of socialist economy. Was that all Hoover's fault? No. But he worsened a horrible crisis.


So those are my nominees. I think Bush stands shoulder-to-shoulder with these men. War. Crisis. Corruption. Incompetence. Congratulations, Mr. President (for four more days, anyways). It's been quite a ride.

Nixon redux

We're nearing the end of 2008 which means that most journalists will naturally be thinking about top ten lists of the year. (We sort of can't help it.)

One of the movies that's been popping up on nearly everybody's top ten list is Ron Howard's adaptation of the Broadway play Frost/Nixon.

Which is a shame, because Frost/Nixon pretty much sucks.

I should say at the outset, that this is a subject that is near and dear to me (as much as Richard Nixon could be near and dear to anyone). Not that I feel in any way warmly towards Nixon. Quite the opposite. But in terms of presidents that we've had over the last 50 years or so, I've always believed that (along with Lyndon Johnson) Nixon is the most interesting. And he's the one I've been reading the most about over the last year (with the exception of Bush).

Few men were as devious -- or as filled with self-loathing. But few presidents were quite as bright. (Henry Kissinger didn't necessarily agree with me on this; when the Watergate transcripts were finally published Kissinger was stunned at how cluttered and unfocused Nixon's thoughts were.)

And great things have been written about Nixon. Most recently, Rick Perlstein's book, Nixonland, which is a minor masterpiece. (And which really should have been on the Times' top ten books of 2008 along with Bart Gellman's Angler and From Schlub to Stud.)

Unfortunately, Nixonland ends just as the cracks in Nixon's presidency start appearing. The Watergate investigation and Nixon's ultimate resignation are glossed over.

Perhaps Perlstein thought he couldn't improve upon Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein's book, The Final Days -- another great book about Nixon.

The Final Days is -- from a literary perspective -- far more exciting than All the President's Men. Not to put down ATPM -- it should be the first book taught in Journalism 101 -- but it is a sort of convoluted story; you have to really pay attention to the all the different players and facets to understand the underpinnings of Watergate. (Which is, of course, necessary -- but somewhat tedious.) The Final Days, on the other hand, shows Nixon on the precipe of madness. Nixon is like a trapped animal, trying everything he can think of to claw his way out of danger. He cannot. It is fascinating.

And, yes, when you've gotten though all of this, I agree that the real-life Frost interviews with Nixon were extremely interesting in their own right. (It's one of the reasons I ultimately disagree with Kissinger -- I find it difficult to believe that Nixon was stupid after watching those interviews.)

Was there some measure of closure in hearing Nixon admit that he let the American people down?

I wasn't alive for the Nixon presidency, so I don't really know. But given the seriousness of the crimes he committed and the national trauma of what he put America through I can't imagine that a tepid admission of guilt and a few watery eyes on television was sufficient. (There was a kind of poetic justice in the fact that Nixon -- who craved power and acceptance so desperately -- was forced to relinquish it so humiliatingly. My response: "Not enough!")

But in the Ron Howard movie, this admission is seen as some sort of central event in American history. The interviews a kind of surrogate trial.

Oh, come on.

If you think that the Frost interviews were a seminal American event, then you should really read one of the books I talked about above. The high crimes and misdemeanors of the Nixon Administration had been extremely well documented by the time Nixon sat down with Frost. To think that the American public was knocked for a loop by hearing certain embarrassing things straight from the horse's mouth is slightly absurd.

But the more serious flaw in Frost/Nixon is the fact that the movie is boring (even for a Watergate fiend like me.)

Re-creating an interview is slightly redundant when the original interview exists and is plenty fascinating in its own right.

The only hope that the movie had of success is that the sparring between the two was heightened behind the scenes -- which it does with extremely marginal results. Even though he garnered a lot of praise, I think that Michael Sheen's performance as David Frost felt a little pip-squeakish. He flounders at first and then supposedly dominates in the end... but remind me why I should care about David Frost?

Oh, yes. He invested hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own money in paying Nixon off for the interview. (True.) Of course, he stands to make a lot of money if the interview is successful. (Which he did.) So it's sort of hard to feel a lot of sympathy for his financial plight.

Moreover, there was something sort of ridiculous about the fact that Frost has months and months to prepare for this interview and only seems to crack down and hit the books a couple of days before the final interview. (It reminded me a great deal of the "Montage" sequence and song from Team America.)

But the big question is: How is Nixon? Frank Langella (an actor I admire much more) gives us, I think, too broad a caricature. The gruff voice; the social awkwardness; the droopiness -- it all felt more like a cartoon than a real portrayal.

You're much better off actually watching the Frost-Nixon interviews.

************************************************

By the way, being that we're at the end of the year, I'm going to write my own schlub take on all the big Oscar contenders this week. Tomorrow: Doubt.